sábado, mayo 27, 2006

Eduardo Bernabe Ordaz, a doctor turned torturer, died in Cuba.

Dr. Ordaz was a close friend and collaborator of Fidel Castro and was named by him director for life of Cuba's psychiatric hospital known as Mazorra.

Many Cuban dissidents were sent to Mazorra to be tortured and several of them received electroshocks while lying on bare floors that were wet from their own urine. Dr. Armando M. Lago and Charles J. Brown wrote a book in 1991 titled "The politics of psychiatry in revolutionary Cuba" describing many of the abuses that occurred at Mazorra while Ordaz was Director.

"In the former Soviet Union, with a population of three hundred million, there were 300 well documented cases of psychiatric abuse against political dissidents (1 per million). However, Cuba's eleven million inhabitants, with 371 cases is a shocking contrast (1 per 30,000)," said Dr. Lagos, one of the authors of the book.

One of those torturers who used to work at Mazorra, Eriberto Mederos, later came to Miami in 1984 and became a US citizen in 1993. Mederos was identified by one of his victims while working as a nurse at a local hospital and was arrested, brought to trial and convicted of crimes against humanity. Among those who testified against Mederos was Belkis Ferro, who was only 15 years old when he tortured her with electroshock treatments and insulin shots. Belkis was deemed a “rebellious teenager” and was punished for denouncing Castro’s oppressive regime at school.

2 comentarios:

Wrong - I was there several times. Met Ordaz. Know his entire family. Shot a documentary for ZDF about the hospital and its history. I had access to every door I wanted. Interviewed who ever I wanted. Stop beeing so respectful and anti propagandistic

I'm cuban. I don't know personnaly anybody that had suffered from electroshock, but I know that happened. I have a close friend that was a dissident in the 70'. He was taken to Mazorra and left alone with a dangereaous crazy rapist to be "given a lesson". He spent some time in this hospital. He said he scaped rape... Anyway, It's true that they took dissidents to this psychiatric hospital. Excuse my english!